Neighbors Save 3 Trapped In Fire

Neighbors responding to a mother`s plea for help Monday caught a 1-month- old girl after the infant was dropped from the third-floor window of a burning West Side apartment building.

The child`s mother also was caught after she jumped from the window, and the fall of a man was broken by neighbors who attempted to catch him in a quilt.

Candy Owens, 16; her daughter, Erica; and Robert Lewis, 18, all of 4407-09 W. Adams St., escaped serious injury and later were treated at Loretto Hospital and released.

``Candy was yelling `Please, please somebody catch my baby!` `` said Jermaine Walker, 15, of 4417 W. Adams St. ``She dropped the baby, and a man in the crowd caught it. Then Candy jumped, and I helped catch her,`` said Walker a freshman at Metro High School.

More than 25 people gathered under the window to assist in the rescue, Walker said. ``She was holding the baby out for someone to catch, and women were crying and turning their heads because they were afraid to look when she dropped the baby,`` he said.

Jerry Johnson, 77, of 4413 W. Adams St., said he learned of the fire when he saw people running past his window. ``When I looked outside, I saw a big puff of black smoke coming from the building and a man hanging out the window. ``There was a crowd of people and some were holding the sides of a quilt to catch him. But when he hit it, it tore and he went right through.``

A spokesman at Loretto Hospital said the infant was received uninjured. Owens was treated for abrasions to her legs and right arm and Lewis was treated for abrasions to his right thigh.

Firefighter Kevin Coffey, 27, received cuts on his left hand while fighting the blaze and was treated at West Suburban Hospital, Oak Park, and released, a hospital spokesman said.

The fire began about 2:30 p.m. when two small children playing with matches in a first-floor apartment set fire to paper under a bed and flames ignited a mattress, according to Chief Thomas Powers of the 13th Battalion.

A youth in the apartment tried to take the mattress out through the rear of the aparment, but it became wedged in an enclosed rear porch and the fire spread to the second and third floors, Powers said.

The blaze caused moderate damage to the building and was extinguished within an hour, fire officials said.